Christmas, Crystals and Candles
by Some Jedi Girl
Summary: Profs. Lupin and Trelawney on Christmas Eve: two outcasts share a few moments of company, perhaps more, if only briefly. Set during PoA.


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Christmas, Crystals and Candles

By SomeJediGirl (somejedigirl at aol.com)

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Author's Note: This was written with love for Melinda and Sara, the Lupin fanatics. Please know that I enjoy Harry Potter but had never planned to write in this fandom, and was constrained to do so after mentioning that someone should write a Lupin/Trelawney smutfic. This is adultish but did not end up being explicit at all; I rated it "R" because you never know who may be reading. Enjoy!

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It was a chilly Christmas Eve, and a lonely one. Professor Remus Lupin prowled the dark corridors of Hogwarts castle, unable to decide what he was seeking, if anything, knowing only that he was loath to remain resting alone in his room for a moment longer.

He knew that elsewhere in the more inhabited parts of the castle, the hallways and meeting rooms were bedecked with lights and holly and mistletoe and washed all over with the smells of cooking. Christmas didn't hold a candle to Halloween, as modern magical holidays went, but the staff had worked hard to impart some Yuletide cheer to the few students and teachers who remained at the school. They would welcome him to their celebrations.

But Remus wasn't sure he _wanted_ to feel Yuletide cheer. He was sick, both from the end of the month's full moon the night before, and from worry. Worry over Harry, who looked too much like James for Remus to ever feel completely comfortable around him, and worry over Sirius.

__

Sirius had always been a bit of a git, really, he thought_, but_ _not_ _an_ evil _git. As a rule, he was a most loyal friend. Had he killed those people? Was he truly looking to hurt Harry?_

On and on his thoughts went in this manner, a litany of doubt that kept him from vital rest but also steered his steps into solitude, away from the revels of the great hall and the company of his colleagues. For what seemed like hours he strayed inexorably round the edges of the castle, alone with turbulent thought, until a high, quavery voice floated to his ears.

"My Dear Professor Lupin! Remus-- I knew you would come this way."

It was Sibyll Trelawney, that most odd professor of Divination. She stood halfway in the hall with one beringed hand holding an open door, looking almost like one of the castle ghosts in her proliferation of shawls. He wondered for a moment why she had been lurking behind a doorway _here_, of all places, till a quick look at his surroundings informed him that he had wandered into the North Tower. He slid his gaze back to her and stared for a moment, unable to think of a reply to her strange pronouncement.

"Well, come in," she continued, ignoring his silence and stepping back as if to allow him to pass into the room.

A sort of fog of mixed scents poured from the open doorway, overwhelming his still-sensitive nose. Remus finally found his tongue to speak. "No, I thank you, but I hadn't planned--"

"Nonsense, my dear. Our own plans are nothing to the Grand Design."

He stared at her for few silent moments, until she sighed and clarified.

"My crystal ball informed me that you would visit this evening. So good to have company now and then." Her magnified eyes behind her thick, round glasses were expectant and pleased.

Remus found he didn't have the heart to refuse her. She was an eccentric, one he rather found he pitied. What harm could it do to keep this strange creature a few minutes' company? His solitude and dark thoughts would be waiting for him when he left. "Only for a moment, then," he said, and ducked inside.

"As you say."

She led him down a short, paisley-papered and besconced hall into a cozy sitting room. At least, he decided it _could_ have been considered cozy if one were into porcelain knickknacks, occult jewellery, poufy furniture and candles. Many, many candles.

"Do sit down," she said, swiping several coverlets off a small, flowered couch and patting its cushions before ducking out down another dark hall. "I have just been making a pot of tea in expectation of your visit."

Remus sat, noting that a small tea service with two delicate china cups had already been set out on a table before the couch. He wondered for a moment whether she _had_ known he was coming, but banished the thought almost immediately. He'd been at Hogwarts only a few short months but had already become well-acquainted with the general opinion of Sibyll Trelawney. Most of the other professors, and many of the students, considered her a fraud, if a harmless one. Tonight's meeting was almost certainly chance. She'd probably lurked in the hallways, waiting for some unsuspecting soul to come and relieve her tedium.

He spent the few minutes before her return examining his surroundings further. Her parlor looked like an extension of her classroom, which he'd seen once. Fringed lamps were scattered here and there on small, draped tables, along with crystals of various hues and the candles he'd noticed earlier. His sense of smell, still heightened after last night's bout of full-moon fever, had adjusted to the cacophony of scents and could now differentiate between them. A moment's sniff and reflection revealed a pine-scented candle in one corner, a sort of _reddish _but not unpleasant odor burning from one in another, and the distinct scent of gingerbread emanating from the tower of wax and wick that sat on a table sandwiched between the couch and a poufy chair. It smelled quite nice, actually. It made him think of home. Of an invitation to a real home, on Christmas Eve. Of a place that wasn't a draughty castle.

Sibyll floated back into the room with teapot in hand, interrupting his game of name-the-smell. "Tea, my dear. Be sure not to drink the leaves." She poured, then sat next to him on the couch and propped her bare feet on the table before them in a surprisingly girlish and relaxed manner. Her toenails were pink.

Remus smiled, thinking that she really was a very odd creature. "Besides being here to relieve my late and lonely stroll, why did you not join the others for plum pudding?"

"Too much company can be fatiguing to those of us with the Sight," she said vaguely, removing her large glasses to run a hand over her forehead and reveal quite normal-sized eyes. "Two, however, is the perfect number for a coze, do you not agree, my dear?"

"Of course," he agreed with gallantry. "But with Madame Hooch gone away, I hear the ladies are pitifully outnumbered."

"Minerva McGonagall does not approve of me, I am afraid," she replied in a clear voice and with startling frankness. "Between you and myself, I do believe she is jealous that her powers run to the mundane, the physical. She does not possess the ability to See."

Remus allowed a chuckle to escape, but could not find the meanness to disabuse her. "She can be rather stern," was all he would say. He sipped his tea and felt its warmth drowse through him, as the smells of the pine and the _red_ and the gingerbread permeated his lungs. His stomach growled slightly at the tea and the scent. Truly, it smelled delicious…

"But do not pity me, my dear," she continued abruptly, leaning closer and fixing a firm eye and ringed finger upon him. "I am not always unappreciated. Professor Dumbledore is ever gracious. He has been most understanding to you, as well, and your unfortunate situation."

Remus was startled from his comfortable haze for a moment at both her words and the conviction in her voice. It sounded as if she was trying to console him. As if she'd been feeling sorry for _him_, who'd thought he'd been doing the old crackpot a favor by sitting with her for a few moments.

"I am fine, I assure you," he said, allowing a note of wariness to creep into his voice. But really, when he thought about it, who was he to think her peculiar? _Loony, loopy, Lupin_, his mind sang at him, with the voice of Peeves. The voices of other ghosts from the past sang, as well.

Sibyll continued with an oblivious giggle. "Ironic, is it not, that you should be hired as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, when you are a bit of a Dark Art yourself?"

"Er-- Perhaps," he ground out, but then thought more about it, and how true it was. He was the outsider at Hogwarts.

And at the moment _she,_ for once, looked almost normal, stretched out next to him. At some point she'd removed her shawls, and bereft of those or her glasses some of her eccentric glory had passed off. And, he realized, she wasn't so very old. His own age, perhaps, and not even as prematurely grey. He tried to remember if she'd gone to Hogwarts and if he'd seen her during his own school days. Then he wondered if he would have noticed her anyway. The shining company of James and Sirius had tended to blind one to the presence of lesser mortals.

Well, now the lesser mortal was feeling sorry for _him_. What was more, there was no reason for her not to. He couldn't forget that he was here under the sufferance of Dumbledore. Yet she was not condemning him, merely being refreshingly candid. That honesty of manner was something not afforded to him by any of the other professors except for Snape; the rest of them pretended he was as normal as they were. Remus allowed his momentary pique to dwindle away.

He realized that the smell of gingerbread had become quite relaxing, really. Almost arousing. And the present atmosphere of understanding woman that she generated-- it was brought to him forcibly at that moment that she _was_ a woman. The female of the species, now sitting very close.

He shook his head tightly to clear it. He wondered if perhaps those particular thoughts were just the last remnants of the previous evening's _homo lupinus_, smoldering to ash deep inside the rest of his all-too-human flesh.

Whatever the cause, he decided he shouldn't be sitting here after all. Comfort and complacency were dangerous for one in his position and with his current disposition, even on Christmas Eve and even with the company of another outcast. He stood with a sudden effort of re-bunched muscle, sloshing his tea onto the table but not caring.

"I need to be going," he announced, but then realized Sibyll had stood almost as quickly as he and had blocked him from the exit with a braceleted arm.

"No, my dear, you shan't," she said lightly, her solid stance belying the mildness of her tone. "The Fates told me that you will stay a while longer."

He took a breath to contradict her, but only inhaled, again, the lush scent and solace of her room, and her, and the empty hallways of the castle seemed chillier and more forlorn than ever. He found he didn't _want_ to leave. Languor seeped anew through his bones and he fell onto the cushions below. The misfits would continue to mingle for a spell.

"Just as I thought," she said.

Remus wondered for a moment if she'd been reading his mind, but then decided she was only glad of his acquiescence. Her next words, however, reignited his apprehension.

"We are both solitary creatures, you and I," she began, laying a familiar hand upon his shoulder and seating herself on the edge of the couch next to him, closer than before. "I, because of my far-seeing Gift, and you, because of the Dark Curse of your Childhood."

"I-- I suppose you could say that," he replied, pointedly staring ahead and _not_ at the hand on his shoulder. Its unfamiliar warmth seeped into his skin through the double layers of his cardigan and shirt.

"Yes," she continued, laying her head against her hand. The fragrance of her hair entered the mix of smells that hung about them. It was a fresh, clean scent. The crimped waves themselves, he now noticed, were not tangled but exceptionally soft against his cheek. "I have been here a long time—a happy time—yet sometimes one does get lonely."

"Er," he said, but caught a fine curly strand in his mouth. He stopped speaking and brought a hand around her back to pull it out and to pat it down in a small display of comfort. Instead, he found his fingers stroking it along the length of her hair to rest against her spine. He couldn't help but notice, in some small male way, that her blouse was thin and her back was smooth. No bra.

A frisson of tense energy leapt along the nerves of his arm to ache in his gut. He was alarmed and slightly disgusted with himself. He'd allowed an inappropriate reaction to a simple gesture of kindness.

Yet it had been a long time since he'd been this close to a female, even a female such as she. Women tended not to understand a man who disappeared several days out of every month with no explanation, only to reappear ragged and bruised. It had been easier to avoid the close company of women altogether. Therefore he was out of practice when dealing with the fairer sex, and unsure of the direction of her current words. He chose to believe the discomfort was on his side alone.

She spoke again, seemingly oblivious to his small inner struggle. "Normally, my dear Remus, I enjoy my solitude. But now and again I find that I must seek the company of another, if only for a short while."

"Y—yes, just a short while," he echoed unconsciously.

"But that is the way of things, my dear."

She raised her chin to look him in the eye, and suddenly he realized that her meaning could not have been made clearer had she stated it with fewer, blunter words. It was _his_ company she was seeking this evening.

He froze for a moment, thinking, surprised at his sudden inability to give her an unequivocal _No_. It was a moment too long. Her free hand crept soft fingers into the vee of his cardigan, between the buttons of his shirt, to rest against his breastbone.

Remus willed his tongue to spit out the words, _you shouldn't be doing that_. But his tongue wouldn't obey, stilled by a small part of him that welcomed the sensation, that welcomed the little shivers that crept down his spine at each brush of feminine fingers against his heart. He closed his eyes and hesitated still, all-too aware of his own palm resting against her back, and of the simple and demanding intimacy of the moment.

All things had to start somewhere, he dimly remembered. This had started and he had not stopped it, hampered by curiosity and loneliness, and he realized that there was no reason to stop it. No one cared, or would care, and if he wanted to be touched and this was all he could get then he would have it.

He turned to face her and inclined his head to kiss her, finally. Her lips in her thin face were reassuringly soft, and her mouth tasted of tea and disillusionment.

His hand answered against her back, drawing caressing devices of sympathy. An unspoken accord pressed him against her, against the cushions. Again, despite her thin and forlorn form, he was aware of the female, the _other_, in the body beneath him and in the fingers that pressed against his chest.

He closed his eyes and felt her thumb graze over his chin, his lips, and his moustache, wondering what she was looking for and if she had found it. But he didn't want to waste time when the path had been set. He groped with impatient fingers down her calf and then under her long skirt.

Later, he might have remembered an impression of tender skin and lacy fabric sliding under his fingertips, then of heat and pain and constriction; but for now there was no thought, only impressions of slick pleasure recalled as if from a dim past but still made fresh by unfamiliarity.

Later, he would wonder what she had really thought about everything, about him, the lover who would not whisper kind words or caress as he ought. But in the moment he only marveled slightly at the clean scent of her hair, an island of freshness amid the indefinite haze that enveloped them. He marveled at the duration of the physical pleasure allowed him, by a body that had been clenched with urgency but still refused to allow release until the time was long past. And when it did, still it was painful.

Later he would remember no words but that was because none were spoken. Even Sibyll, who never seemed to cease speaking, had only uttered short huffs of breath against his ear for what seemed like hours. And now, as he risked a glance at her face at his side, it only showed a small, satisfied smile.

It didn't last long after he finally climbed off her.

"Oh! Well," she seemed to start, but then only pulled down her skirt and sat back against the cushions, gazing at him with a myopically dream-like stare.

Remus allowed himself time to slow his breathing and to refasten his pants before standing shakily. "I—I need to be going," was all he could think to say.

"Oh. Yes," she said, stretching her arms and legs and curling her toes, catlike, over the spot on the couch where he had been sitting a moment before. "Did you finish your tea?"

"Yes," he said, then took another deep breath. "I probably shall not return…"

"No, you shall not. But I understand."

He felt he owed her some sort of explanation after his hasty performance. He stared at the far wall, embarrassed once more, though all was still hazy. Memory would come later. "Er—it's not that I didn't enjoy my visit, as such, but I'm sure that… close fraternization between teachers is discouraged…" Here he trailed off, feeling like more of an ass than he thought he ever had before in his life.

"That will not be the reason," she sighed at him dreamily. He gathered the quick courage to glance at her again and saw that she wasn't even looking at him, but had picked up his empty teacup and clutched it aloft above her reclining form. "Why, here is a staff, and a cloud! You will have a reunion with old friends, and—oh, no—trouble! Terrible trouble, my dear!"

"I will?" he asked, startled.

""Yes. Oh!" She sat up abruptly and focused on him again, scrabbling for her glasses on the table. "I should crystal-gaze for you. Tea leaves are fine for general portents, but to be more specific--"

"No!" he practically shouted. The startlement had turned to panic. After everything that had happened, she was the last person he wanted divining his future, or reading his mind, or whatever it was that she did. He tried to remember his earlier amusement at the expense of the Art of Divination but found he couldn't.

"Really, my dear, it will only take a moment!" She had jumped from the couch and replaced her glasses, and now seemed to be searching for the correct crystal with which to terrify him even more.

"No! Thank you for the tea. And for… everything," he added lamely. "Goodbye, and er—Merry Christmas!"

With that reprehensible parting shot he nearly sprinted down the sconce-lined door to the hall, and out. He could hear her calling after him, from a distance, "But do you not want to know when and why you shall be leaving us?"

But he did not want to know. The desire for solitude and rest had returned, with a vengeance. He expected that a few days in his room, drinking Professor Snape's potion, might do the trick. He passed Peeves in the hall.

"Loony, loopy, Lupin," the ghost sang after his retreating form.

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Please Review!!! It's the only way I know if anyone's read this. :)


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